• 1.  I have lost 10 lbs in 2 months.
• 2.  And I’ve passed the 10% word-writing goal on the novel I began to actively write on the 2nd of January.

Both show no signs of stopping yet.  I’m feeling good.

• I found an in-home composter for my small-time kitchen scraps which has taught me not to throw away compostable items so easily.  I am now having a hard time having enough room and already plotting where to put the new compost pile outside.  I feel better knowing that the money spent on vegetables and vegetative products are not going to waste, they are merely turning into something else I can use.
• We have switched to cloth handkerchiefs instead of paper tissues so that we are not throwing away so much paper.
• I have replaced disposable gloves with a permanent set of rubber dish gloves for all tasks I must perform sanitarily.
• I have begun an Amazon toilet paper subscription for Seventh Generation TP, because not only are the roll tubes and outside paper compostable/recyclable, but so is the cardboard box it comes in instead of being wrapped in plastic packaging.
• When necessary to use specialty cleaning for my clothing, I use a local shop that uses eco-friendly cleaning methods.
• I no longer use q-tips for my damp ears, I use a manual ear dryer that circulates air through the ear quickly to remove the water.
• I have converted to a digital filing system and am reducing incoming paper mail more all the time.
• I use mineral make-up from Everyday Minerals for foundation and eyes, and they come in recyclable packaging.  To be completely responsible, I need to find a solution for mascara and convert to a natural lip gloss (which I have a recipe for).
• I use vegetable oil as a lubricant for squeaky hinges and the like, instead of chemical oils like WD-40.

 ’Spontaneous Happiness’ by Andrew Weil, MD was a book I had high hopes for.  Prefaced with that sentence, you can imagine there’s a ‘but’ in there and there is.  However, while much of the book was an enormous bore, there are several things that made me feel like I’d had a concept put to me in a new way that helped it click a little better than before.

Filled with information I either already knew or didn’t care much about (by being overly technical and therefore lost my interest), the elements that I appreciated are the following concepts:

•  Happiness is not a state that can be maintained constantly.  It is a high point on a natural algorithm.  Being sad, depressed, et cetera, are necessary mood points.  The true state we should actually be achieving is contentment, which is the mid-point on the wavelength that we should bounce back to most of the time.  Euphoria is nice but, like mourning, cannot and should not be maintained for extended periods.
• Positive therapy to help condition the mind and body for contentment is made up of three major areas: pleasure, flow, and meaning. Pleasure from tasks such as the extremely positive feelings from eating good food or sex and intimacy.  Flow such as when you lose yourself in a task for a good period of time that is neither too easy or too hard.  And meaning, which seems pretty self-explanatory, but can be summarized as doing tasks that fulfill you by utilizing your personal talents towards a larger picture.
• Our minds needs occupying like an elephant’s mischievous trunk.  He pointed out that during parade processions in India elephants are given a bamboo cane.  Because with their trunk preoccupied with the bamboo, they cannot pluck and grab at everything they pass.  He uses this analogy toward understanding how sometimes the human brain needs training back to a harmless focus so that we don’t get ourselves into emotional trouble.

• 1.

      Farewell, My Subaru – Doug Fine

• 2.

       Family Feasts for $75 a Week – Mary Ostyn

• 3.

     Mother Warriors – Jenny McCarthy

• 4.

     Unbroken – Lauren Hillenbrand

• 5.

      Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping – Judith Levine

It’s not true, though.  Yesterday I went through all of my papers.  This means I recycled a load of items that didn’t have my personal information on it, and bagged an amazingly enormous pile of paperwork to be burned.  I can’t tell you how fabulous and freeing it is to be converting to a digital filing system.  It’s soooo easy to sort and there aren’t piles of paper everywhere, because I’m notoriously bad at filing. I love that I can have twenty back ups, if I choose, in the blink of an eye with thumb drives.

Started sorting ornaments and gifting paraphernalia today and also began putting together a binder with information I might need at the drop of a hat (like contact information for bills, medical, auto info, etc.) and checklists.

Hopefully I’ll start making hauls to the thriftstore and dump soon.  And, with luck, listings on craigslist to clear out the nicer items.

Clearly I’m feeling the spirit of change and I’m loving it.  I’ve done so much in three days that it’s no wonder I’m exhausted!  Go motivation go!

• Converted all of my files to a digital filing system, leaving only a few pieces of tax-related and manuals to be kept in paper form.
• Installed my new ‘landing strip’ wall.
• Have begun the arduous process of collecting important information into a central binder for quick reference, such as the contact numbers for various financial and medical institutions and information about nana’s medical needs.
• Have begun an overhaul of my digital files, culling the unnecessary and repetitive bits all over the place.
• Purged and organized all of my emails into folders.
• Sorted through all of my spices and random baking tidbits, putting the former into my new magnetic tins and putting the latter into jars.
• And am already color-coding and sorting out lists in my new planner.

I didn’t know how toxic you were until I cut the tumor out of me.  I didn’t know you were a leash, until you weren’t there to hold me back.  I didn’t know I was so terrible, until your hatred made me hold up a mirror and burn out all of the ugly things that I found there.

It took a year or two of tumbling down the confusion of the rabbit hole, trying to find my footing, trying to get a handhold.  I didn’t make the best choices, I had the worst timing, and I almost ran away from my own life.  I didn’t.  I took apart the brick house that made up who I am and I put it back together again with granite, craftsmanship, and better security.  I learned who I was with you and then I learned who I was without.

And you know what?  I’m amazing.  I am strong, wise, and hilarious.  I am never satisfied with just being okay, I am always striving to do better the next time.  I have learned to take blame and how to apologize.  I am learning how to handle myself and I am learning how to patch in to others.  I am pushing my previous limitations, I am finding new boundaries, I am building a better me out of stardust and dark matter.

There is still a little black monster that hides in a pocket on my still-large frame.  It’s the demon that grins to hear about how little you’ve made out of yourself.  It’s the shade that feels vindicated that I am evolving while you spiral downwards.  It’s the martyr that wishes you’d learn your lesson, see how badly you’ve treated people—how badly you treated me.  It’s the little monster I make smaller every day.

I am thankful you tried to throw me into the bitter dust of lonliness, I was alone and it made me deal with myself.  I am thankful you hated me, because it made me look at my flaws and change them.  I am thankful that you made it possible for me to break away from you after so much time in a caustic relationship.  I am thankful that you are the catalyst to the person I am today, the person I am still becoming, and the truly incredible person I will not stop until I am.

I wish you could do the same.

Day 1, Birthday:  Starting after 10 the night before, I pack up my car to leave my mom’s where I’d been house-sitting for a week and… my car won’t start.  It tries, bless it’s little Mazda heart, but it just won’t do it.  Because I wanted home and had a full couple days, I kidnapped my mother’s car and went home (don’t think I didn’t do a lot to try and get my car working first, it was a last resort.) After some snafus and brief unpleasantness, I get to Seattle intact, get my ticket for that night’s show, grab Roxy and go have ‘dinner’ at Macaroni Grill.  It was 2-ish and it was my first meal of the day (it ended up being the only meal of the day).  We didn’t win a trip to Italy or vespas or anything else like that, but we did get 30% off the bill and I got my chocolate cake for dessert free because it was my birthday.  BIG score.

Being T-day eve, and pouring buckets, traffic was insane.  It took at least an hour to get back to the area where VnV was playing.  However, it ended up being perfect timing to snag parking out front, and since it was also when the venue’s lounge opened, we got ‘first in’ passes for when ticket holders begin being admitted.

The show: fucking amazing.  I have never been to a concert that affected me as much as this one did.  I was so present, so involved, and so connected to the music and the people that I’ve been very emotional in the days following.  It was the best night ever.  Two encores and lots of love and laughter.

Day 2, T-day: Got out of the concert so late there was no hope of catching a ferry.  Crashed at Roxy’s for three hours and woke up insanely early to catch the first ferry.  Got home and ended up dozing very briefly on the couch before I got to work making the deviled eggs I’d been assigned.

Glammed myself up and went over to the parents’ house early.  Ended up being helpful in the kitchen, got a few birthday cards and an awesome/thoughtful gift from my dad, but otherwise the evening was very normal.  Neither amazing or bad, just pleasant and comfortable.

Day 3, today: Something needed to be done about the car situation.  Gave my mom a ring, she said she could look at cars with me, I called up a few craigslist ads and arranged a couple visits.  Got spoiled with the first pricier one and was disappointed by the cheaper one after. (Though mom insists that not wanting all the defects the car had to offer, including a winshield with a crack running the entire perimeter, was not bing spoiled.) Went back to the first car, a Grand Marquis, and bought it.

I now drive a luxurious land yacht.

Oh, at this point I have run the turkey carcass through one batch of broth-making, landing 7.5 quarts of dark, tasty juice.

Day 4, Tomorrow: Was invited to go to some amazing fish place called Spuds with the fam.  Need to catch up on, well, everything.  Will need to start the day handling the second run of broth and contemplate a third, though at this point I’m not sure I have the room for a third batch.  I’m also hoping to finally go grocery shopping.

I tried to compress all of that as best as I can.  I hope I didn’t bore you to tears.

Because of a clandestined coincidence, my best friend was walking downtown by Pike Place and noticed that a little venue there is hosting a performance by VnV Nation.  I know that most people now in my life wouldn’t understand the excitement caused by this, because it harkens back to the days I went to goth clubs.  VnV is one of the bands from those days that I still listen to today and the irony is that I always seem to miss them.  Being a German EBM group, they don’t travel around the States as much as one might like and through my years at the goth e-zine, or later on down the road, I have missed them by mere days and been crushed to have done so.  It seems I always find out about these things too late or something comes up.

But not this time.  This time they’re here and it’s on my birthday.  It’s all such a fantastic coincidence: her being there because of visiting family, her being the only person I know anymore who knows them, it being a performance on my birthday, my already spending my birthday with her across the sound.  It was meant to be.  So I bought my ticket and I eagerly await getting to see ‘old friends’ (they certainly feel like old friends).

VnV isn’t until 8pm, however, so other plans include sleeping in (ahhhh…), getting fancied up, and hopping the ferry over to Seattle to pick up the ticket because they won’t let you pick it up after 4 (what’s that all about?).  Then I’ll drive all the way over to Everett to eat salad and hot chocolate cake at Macaroni Grill and use up the two contest playing pieces that could win me a trip to Italy or a Vespa, and so on, but will probably only win me free dinner or dessert.  Then a jaunt over to Jared’s for miss Char to check out my grandmother’s emeralds and see what can be done about resurfacing them before, I thought, we’d head back over to Seattle.  I’d like to visit Uwajimaya again, maybe Elliot Bay Books, maybe Marcus’ Martini Heaven, and then over to the Showbox to chill in the lounge until VnV begins.  I love that you can be there the 2 hours before and do some drinking!  The plan is a little liquid, but I think that’s important for a good time.  The only hitch in the master plan is the hour detour to take Rox home and get to the ferry, whose traffic will be impossible because it’s the night before Thanksgiving and the last ferry is at 11:45pm.

What I’d really like to do is have an amazing birthday and collapse into my bed at the end of it.  That would be perfect.  Wish me luck, my lovelies.

For ease of reading, I’m going to occasionally post entries to update what I’ve managed to try out and then make stick, so that you don’t have to go clicking on the tab all of the time to see if I’ve gotten anywhere.  It’s just a convenient little click away if you (but mostly I) want to see it all in one place and maybe try some of them out for yourself.

So today’s list (all that I could remember):

• I have made the switch to cellulose-only sponges, using baking soda (or my homemade dish-washer detergent below) when I need to scour the tough stuff on dishes or other surfaces. Though, with the dishes, I have only had to do that once since I’ve made the switch, so maybe we don’t need scour pads after all?
• Although I’ve made my own laundry detergent successfully, I switched to using ‘Country Save’ which is an excellent biodegradable and completely soluble detergent that is natural, safe, dye-free, and perfume-free.  It’s also affordable.  Also, after buying my big (cardboard!) box of it, I discovered that my local grocery sells it in their bulk soap section and I will be able to purchase it package-free when I run out.  And for fabric softener I use white vinegar before the final rinse using a Downy ball.  Although, after doing this for a little while I found that my clothes are soft without vinegar now that I’m not using questionable detergents.
• I make my own dish-washer detergent from equal parts washing soda, borax, and salt.  All ingredients are either easily found in bulk, or compostable boxes, and all-natural.
• I use tooth soap (which is regular ol’ soap, but some brands add a more palatable flavor) instead of tooth paste and hydrogen peroxide as mouth rinse.  Homemade soap is natural and breaks down without much harm, over all, and does not inhibit the absorption of nutrients into the teeth with a fluoride barrier. Hydrogen peroxide, although anti-septic and a bleach, breaks down into simple water.
• I use shampoo soap bars from homemade soap companies to wash my hair and apple cider vinegar rinses (a dash of cider vinegar in a cup of water) to do what conditioners do.  My hair has noticeably improved in health but is frizzier than I’d like (not that it was much better with chemical soap).
• I look to reduce packaging as much as possible, which is at least an active effort, although not the largest accomplishment on the list.  Whenever possible, I choose the product with the least packaging or most compostable packaging.
• Although microfiber cloths are not compostable, they are made from recycled plastic and can be recycled after they are no longer useable.  Switching to microfibers and a spray bottle of plain water have replaced paper towels and spray cleaners and clean just as well or better.
• I have replaced the need for commercial facial moisturizer with a simple mix of water and glycerin in a small spray bottle.  Because glycerin is a humectant, it pulls moisture from the air and holds it against my face, which readily absorbs it.  I’m never greasy, shiny, or overly moist, and it’s a refreshing spritz.  It costs me pennies, is made of eco-friendly ingredients, and doubles as a make-up mixing medium that smoothes out powdered products on my skin.
• I use salt-crystal deodorant which kills bacteria the same way it has killed bacteria in food since the dawn of man’s discovery.  It is available as just a hunk of salt which drastically reduces plastic packaging.  Some people don’t like the idea of it not also being an anti-perspirant, however to remove the underarm’s capability to sweat is medically proven to increase the risk of breast cancer in women and does not allow the lymph nodes near the arm pit to push toxins out of the body, taxing your immune system.  So rethink anti-perspirant, perhaps?

There are other things looming, but they are so new that it’s unfair to list them since they are on the cusp of being started and therefore not tried-and-true.

I’m also one of those people who believes in remembering the past and keeping it alive.  It’s a tragedy to hear about traditions and memories lost because someone’s grandmother died and no one else bothered to learn from her before she was gone.  Recipes, stories, wisdom; vanished because modern human beings usually take time for granted.

Now I’m not going to go into a big lecture on the importance of keeping a record of knowledge and experience—I think most people who would read this entry already understand the concept—but I would like to share some of what I’ve found and what it led me to learn.

My search for frugality and home-made caused a leap frog effect to occur the other day.  I read through a blog because I loved the voice of the author who had posted the delicious gnocchi recipe.  Through reading her, I discovered another blogger (and book author) who learned to be healthy and frugal because she’s the mother of ten children.  And in reading through her blog’s tips about frugality (to tide me over until her book arrives), she linked to a truly beautiful woman named Clara.

Clara is an incredibly sweet ninety-five year old woman who is sharing with the world, through YouTube videos and a published book, her experience of living through the Great Depression.  Through stories and recipes, she gets across how rough it was to get through the week sometimes.  Yet, her family was also happy, because ‘we didn’t know any better’, she says.  They couldn’t afford to despair any more than they could afford school clothes or meat.

With Clara in mind this morning, I watched my grandmother eating the breakfast I had prepared for her, and I asked her what it had been like for her.

I asked her what the best and worst parts of it had been, and whether she had grown tired of the cheap staple foods that repeated themselves ad nauseum.  I remembered her saying once that she’d had too much bread when she was young, so that’s why she didn’t like bread.  The same went for potatoes and apples.  I asked her if that was because of the Depression and she nodded. “Yeah.  Daddy wouldn’t let us leave the table unless we’d had our bread.”  She said that her family had made a deal with a nearby farmer that, if they labored on his farm, that they could have half of the crops, but that some days they had biscuits and gravy four times a day because they couldn’t afford anything else.  She said the hardest part was most especially the last year of the Depression, when she was fourteen, because by then it was only she and her father working the farms.  She recalled walking the planter up and down the field planting peanuts, and that when the planter fell over she’d had to pick them all up and start all over again.  When I asked her about the good, she said having a boyfriend had meant a lot, although it hadn’t lasted long.  She got a far away look in her eye as she said she had really liked him.  She also said that last year she had really wanted a dress, but that they couldn’t afford one.  And then she said her father bought it for her anyway, because she worked so hard with him that he believed she deserved it.  When I first asked about a good memory, she told me that she remembered a really nice party she’d gone to with other kids her age, a peanut boil, where they spent the night shucking and eating the peanuts, just having a good time together.

I loved the last story, because all I could think was that it was the definition of irony: her best memory and worst memory both involved peanuts.  When I pointed it out she just laughed and laughed.

I felt really proud to have the opportunity to learn a little about what that had been like from someone who’d been there and to learn a little more about her.